Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Whatnot

It was towards the end of August now. We were still in Grimmauld Place, and we still had Death Eaters on stake-out in the square.

I was sitting with Ron and Hermione in the kitchen, looking over our notes eating soup from Kreacher. He had turned into quite a lovely house-elf since we’d been here. I think probably just actually having the company made him more cheerful. Harry came back then, from his patrol outside the Ministry. We had been taking turns because we were planning on breaking in and somehow possibly finding the locket.

“What’s happened?” Ron asked as Harry walked in.

He threw a paper down on the table. The headline read: Severus Snape Confirmed as Hogwarts Headmaster.

“No!” we all yelled.

Hermione grabbed it and began reading the article.

She came to a quote from Snape that said “I welcome the opportunity to uphold our finest Wizarding traditions and values- Like committing murder!”

“And cutting people’s ears off!” I said.

“Snape, headmaster! Snape in Dumbledore’s study- Merlin’s pants!” she shrieked suddenly. “I’ll be back in a minute!”

I thought the same thing, though, remembering the connection between that office and this house.

“Merlin’s pants?” repeated Ron amusedly, “She must be upset.”

“She’ll probably need help, he’s kind of heavy.” I said and ran after Hermione.

We dashed up to where Phineas hung. Luckily, he didn’t seem to like hanging around here much. We hadn’t seen him, at least, since we’d been here. We lifted him off the wall and began lugging it down the stairs.

“And what in the name of Merlin’s most baggy Y fronts was that about?” Ron asked.

“I remembered this.” She said, as we tried to shove it into her bag until it vanished like everything else we carried with us.

“Phineus Nigellus” I said.

“Sorry?” Ron asked.

“Snape could send Phineus Nigellus to look inside this house for him. But let him try it now, all Phineus Nigellus will be able to see is the inside of my handbag.”

“And won’t that be a lovely surprise? Lipstick tubes, a hairbrush, and old tissues.” I joked.

They laughed then Ron said “Good thinking!”

Then we started discussing the Ministry and Umbridge again, and Ron and Hermione got into an argument, which Harry thankfully interrupted by stunning us all into silence by saying “I think we should do it tomorrow.”

We all stopped what we were doing.

“Tomorrow?” asked Hermione. “You aren’t serious Harry?”

“I am. I don’t think we’re going to be much better prepared than we are now even if we skulk around the Ministry entrance for another month. The longer we put it off, the farther away that locket could be. There’s already a good chance Umbridge has chucked it away; the thing doesn’t open.”

“He’s got a good point.” I said.

“Unless she’s found a way of opening it and she’s now possessed.” Said Ron.

“Wouldn’t make any difference to her,” I shrugged.

“She was so evil in the first place,” said Harry.

He went on, trying to convince Hermione that we knew everything we would ever know, and that our plan was workable. I didn’t need much convincing, I was tired of being in the house all day, scouring notes and maps and plans. I wanted to do something.

“It’s time to act” said Harry.

They reluctantly agreed, and we started going over our plan for the next day.

Now we were walking towards the doors of the ministry building. Hermione and I were both little, grey-haired witches. Names, Mafalda Hopkirk and Aratille Ludwess. The real Mafalda and Aratille were unconscious in the back alley…but they’d be alright. Ron was a small, ferrety-looking man named Reg Cattermole and Harry was a tall, dark, muscular man whose name we didn’t exactly figure out yet. Reg had gone to St. Mungo’s because he couldn’t stop retching, thanks to some of Fred and George’s puking pastilles, and Harry’s guy had gone home with a terrible nose bleed.

There were two sets of steps, one labeled Gentlemen and the other, Ladies.

“See you in a moment, then” said Hermione nervously and I pulled her in the direction of the steps labeled Ladies.

We entered cubicles that were side by side.

“Hermione” I whispered “Are we supposed to climb in it?”

The sound of flushing was on either side of us and the other witches seemed to be disappearing.

“Umm, yes, just climb in I guess and we’ll end up inside the Ministry.”

I stepped in hesitantly and pulled the chain above. Down a short chute, out a fireplace, and I was standing next to Hermione in the lobby of the Ministry.

There was a giant black statue in the middle, wizards sitting on a sort of ornate throne. At the base, it said Magic is Might. Looking close, though, I saw that the thrones were naked bodies of what could only be Muggles and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

We found Ron and Harry and went to get in one of the elevators.

Before we got there, though, a voice called out “Miss Ludwess, excuse me, Miss Ludwess!”

I turned to see a stout, red-haired witch rushing towards me.

“Y-Yes?” I said.

“Dolores needs you to take these to her office and file them.”

“Dolores? Oh, yes, right, I will do that.” I said, clumsily taking the stack from the woman.

“Thank you. Have a nice day!” She called out as she hurried away.

I glanced at the other three pleadingly, and Hermione gave me a look urging me to go on. I nodded quickly and got on one of the lifts to go to level one.

Up on level one, I walked down the hall, past multiple gleaming doors, all with gold plaques stating the owners’ name. I knew her office must be up here, I continued down the hall.

When I turned the corner, I came to an open area where a group of witches and wizards sat at desks, all waving their wands in unison, causing squares of colored paper to fly in some sort of pattern. They seemed to be creating pamphlets. I looked closer as I passed a desk, to see that it read MUDBLOODS and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society.

I scowled and continued towards the door in front that I guessed to be Umbridge’s. That’s when I noticed the eye there. Moody’s eye. Right in the middle of the big wooden door. I didn’t notice I had stopped dead in my tracks until the wizard sitting next to me looked up curiously. I gave him a small smile and kept going, trying to ignore my ever-growing hatred for this woman. I finally reached the door and went inside.

My first instinct was to smash as many things as I could and completely destroy her office. But instead, I took a deep breath and set the papers down. Technically, my job was to file them, but I had a greater need at the moment.

I took out my wand and whispered “Accio Locket.”

Nothing happened. I wasn’t surprised, I hadn’t exactly expected it to. I decided I would file the papers and search for it manually at the same time. I went to the filing desk and started putting the folders in. I had reached the bottom cabinet now, and I only stopped when I saw a file labeled: Mr. Weasley.

I took it out to look at it.

Arthur Weasley
Blood Status: Pureblood, but with unacceptable pro-Muggle leanings. Known member of the Order of the Phoenix.
Family: Wife (pureblood), seven children, two youngest at Hogwarts. NB: Youngest son currently at home, seriously ill, Ministry inspectors have confirmed.
Security Status: TRACKED. All movements are being monitored. Strong likelihood Undesirable No.1 will contact (has stayed with Weasley family previously)

Undesirable No.1? Who the- ? Oooohhh. There was a giant poster of Harry on the wall, with the words Undesirable No. 1 across his chest. There was also a pink note taped to it…Umbridge had written “To be punished” on it. Before I even had a chance to laugh about the complete absurdity of it, I heard a bang outside the office. I turned and saw the door open, but didn’t see anybody come in.

I stared at the door curiously, then heard “Caroline?”

My eyes widened, then I thought of the invisibility cloak “Harry?”

I saw him reappear, though, of course, he was still the Ministry official. He was quite intimidating that way actually.

He turned to the door and wrenched the telescope out of it, then took the eyeball out of the hole.

“Can’t imagine he would want it here,” he mumbled, putting it in his pocket.

“Definitely not. What happened to Ron and Hermione?” I asked.

“Ron got stuck with fixing someone’s leaky office and Hermione was dragged down to the courtrooms by the great toad herself.”

“What for?”

“Record keeping I think. Doesn’t really matter does it? We still need to find a way to get her out. Find anything here yet?”

“No, although I only searched the filing cabinet so far cause I had to put those folders away. Oh, and I found this.” I handed him Mr. Weasley’s folder.

He looked through it, then glanced up at the poster of himself, scowling.

He began to throw open the desk drawers next and I looked around for any more hiding places, the bottoms of vases, etc.

I had crossed over to Harry, who was at the bookshelf when the door suddenly opened. Thicknesse was looking over his shoulder, thankfully, when he entered, so Harry threw the cloak over both of us.

Thicknesse began scribbling a note to Umbridge, and we backed out of the office as quietly as possible. When we reached the hallway, we sped towards the lifts. Harry whipped off the cloak as we got in and we began descending. It stopped at level two and a drenched Ron stepped in.

Before we could tell Ron much of anything, the lift had stopped again and Mr. Weasley himself stepped in.

“Oh, hell Reg,” said Mr. Weasley to Ron. “Isn’t your wife in for questioning today? Er- what’s happened to you? Why are you so wet?”

“Yaxley’s office is raining, I couldn’t stop it, so they’ve sent me to get Bernie- Pillsworth, I think they said- “ Ron said, mostly to his dad’s shoulder.

“Yes, a lot of offices have been raining lately. Did you try Meteolojinx Recanto? It worked for Bletchley.”

“Meteolojinx Recanto?” repeated Ron. “No, I didn’t Thanks D- I mean, Arthur.”

The lift doors opened again and Ron darted out. I went to follow him, glancing back at Harry who gave a quick nod. It would be best if we didn’t all get separated again, if Harry could get Hermione, then we could get out of here quickly. It was starting to make me really nervous.

I ran to catch up with Ron, even with much shorter legs as Reg, he was still really fast.

“Ron” I whispered when I caught up to him. “We need to do this quick, then go down and get Hermione out of the courtrooms. I don’t think the Horcrux is here, so we’d best get out as soon as possible.”

“Agreed, although it makes it seem like a bit of a waste since we didn’t find anything.”

“Well, we’re ruling out someplace at least.” I said as we reached Yaxley’s office.

I let Ron do the spell to stop the raining office. It only took him three tries. The spell was successful, but there was still a lot of stuff in the office that he hadn’t been able to cover with a charm to keep them dry. I helped him dry most of it out with a spell Hermione had taught me to save time on waiting for laundry.

Then, we went back to the lifts, but on our way, we heard someone saying to a group of people, “There’s a hole in Umbridge’s door where the eye was. There must be an intruder somewhere in the building. Go to the Atrium quickly and seal off the fireplaces.”

We rushed to the lifts and began the descent to the courtrooms.

“Where do you suppose Harry is?” Ron asked.

“I don’t know, hopefully he got Hermione and we can leave.”

The doors opened then, and we saw a large group of terrified looking people being led by Harry and Hermione.

“Reg!” a woman screamed, throwing herself into Ron’s arms. “Runcorn let me out, he attacked Umbridge and Yaxley, and he’s told all of us to leave the country, I think we’d better do it, Reg. I really do, let’s hurry home and fetch the children and- why are you so wet?”

“Water” muttered Ron, breaking away. “Harry, they know there are intruders inside the Ministry, something about a hole in Umbridge’s office door-“

“Moody’s eye” I added, Ron gave me a weird look, but continued.

“I reckon we’ve got five minutes if that-“

Hermione suddenly looked horrified and turned to Harry “Harry, if we’re trapped here- !”

“We won’t be if we move fast, who’s got wands?” he asked the people behind him.

“Okay, all of you who haven’t got wands need to attach yourself to somebody who has. We’ll need to be fast before they stop us. Come on.”

We all crammed into two lifts.

“Level eight, Atrium” said the disembodied witch’s voice.

“Bullocks” I muttered as I saw all the people moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off.

“Harry! What are we going to- ?” squeaked Hermione.

“STOP!” Harry bellowed.

All the wizards stopped and looked at him. He had an authoritative air, which helped greatly in this situation. He started ushering the other people into an open fireplace. One man asked what was going on, but didn’t try to stop it because they all seemed greatly afraid of the man Harry was.

“Mary!” we heard someone yell.

I looked over to see Ron running towards us. No wait, Ron’s here, that means…bullocks again. The real Reg Cattermole was running towards us, no longer vomiting, but looking quite pale.

“R-Reg?” Mrs. Cattermole stammered, looking between him and Ron who swore loudly.

“Hey- what’s going on? What is this?” one of the wizards trying to seal the exits asked.

“Seal the exit! SEAL IT!” Yaxley burst from one of the lifts and came running towards us.

Everyone Harry had led up here except for the Cattermoles had vanished through the fireplace. Harry suddenly reached up and punched the wizard who he had stopped from sealing the fireplace.

“He’s been helping Muggle-borns escape, Yaxley!” he yelled.

The other wizards set up an uproar and Ron and I grabbed Mrs. Cattermole, disappearing with her into the fireplace.

We came up in a cubicle and Ron was trying to wrestle Mrs. Cattermole off him.

“Reg, I don’t understand- “

“Let go, I’m not your husband, you’ve got to go home!”

Harry and Hermione banged through the door of another cubicle. Then, there was a noise behind them, and Yaxley appeared, looking royally pissed off I might add.

“LET'S GO!” yelled Harry.

I grabbed Ron’s arm as Harry grabbed both him and Hermione. We spun on the spot and disappeared into the crushing darkness.

The door of Grimmauld Place came into view, but then there was a scream and a flash of purple light and darkness engulfed us again